Shikamaru continued signing the after action reports, ignoring the loud music and the raucous laughter outside. Parties just weren’t his thing. Even a blowout to celebrate the end of the Fourth Great war.

Even after he had dismissed them, his squad mates had tried their best to convince him to join them in the festivities. Ino had practically danced back into the tent, her long blonde hair flowing behind her, giving him a forced, flirtatious wink. “Come with us Shikamaru!” she had teased, the smile beaming through her sorrow and loss. “The war’s over! We won! Surely we can forget the paperwork and live a little!”

Ino had been drowning in her grief. She desperately needed an escape from the reality of things dragging her down. The optimal solution had easily presented itself.

His response had been a simple shrug. “Parties are such a drag... Standing around talking to people you barely know and will likely never meet again... I’m fine, believe me. Maybe when I’m finished I’ll stop by.”

Ino gave him a quick hug and turned away. “Well, if you want me to save you a dance you’d better hurry up!” she said with more joy he had heard from her in days. “The boys are just lining up to talk to me!”

A few moments later his best friend Choji’s bulk had filled up the entrance. “You have got to see this!” his perpetually hungry teammate had crowed, wiping a strand of drool from his chin. “They have at least thirty whole oxen on a spit! It’s like I died and went to Barbeque heaven!”

Choji was the kindest person Shikamaru had ever met. They’d been friends forever. He’d personally seen Choji go out of his way to rescue a butterfly trapped in a spider’s web. Even though the all violence he had committed was to protect his friends, the war had taken its toll. Choji’s normally round smiling face looked drawn and haggard. He needed the break far more that Shikamaru did.

“You go on ahead Choji,” Shikamaru had grumbled, never once looking up from the desk. “I’ll wander on through when I get hungry.”

To tell the truth, he didn’t feel much like eating either. As an official liaison to the battalion commander, he had seen more than his fair share of casualties in this fight. Casualties, that on some level, he felt were his fault.

Shikamaru was a genius. His IQ checked in at over 200. Growing up in the Ninja Academy, the greatest challenge he faced was keeping his eyes open in the monotonously dull classes. He had the reputation of being the laziest boy in school. Back then the only interest he had were strategy games, like chess or go. After graduation, he had earned a bit of a name for himself as a masterful tactician, besting opponents far stronger than himself using sheer wits and foresight.

He did this by visualizing everything as a game of shogi. A moment of relative peace was all he needed to picture himself in front of the board he carried around in his noggin. He used the pieces to play out hundreds of possibilities. The inside of Shikamaru’s head was usually filled with the metaphorical clicking of Shogi tiles.

But not now.

He finished the action reports, rubbed his hand, and reached for the next escarpment of paper. He froze at the title. Official count of shinobi killed, wounded or missing in action.

Shikamaru knew there was no fault that could be accredited to him. Despite his unindustrious nature, he really tried during the conflict. He couldn’t have been everywhere at once. Everyone said he did an excellent job, he was a credit to the alliance.

He should have been better. The clicking of shogi tiles as he endlessly replayed every battle in his head kept him awake long into the night.

It had been more than a week since the allied Shinobi force had emerged victorious. After all the ceremonies and memorials, some of the higher ups had decided that the entire army needed to celebrate their accomplishment.

He had shed his tears, been to the memorials, and said his goodbyes, but the only thing that helped was droning monotony. With almost steady hands, Shikamaru carefully put the casualty list off to one side. He promised himself he’d take care of it later.

*******

The party was roaring into full swing and he was halfway through the requisitions and expenditures manifest, when little shogi playing Shikamaru in his head gave him a mental nudge. There was a familiar aroma filtering through the tent. A hint of jasmine and sandalwood. Shikamaru sat up straighter, and eagerly put his pen down with a click. “And just how long have you been there?” he asked in a purposefully disinterested voice.

“Long enough to determine you’ve lost your edge as a shinobi,” Temari chuckled in a throaty contralto. “I had enough time to come up with seventeen ways to assassinate you.” He could hear the smirk in her voice. “Some of them were quite creative,” she purred.

Shikamaru rolled his eyes and pushed away from the desk to face her. “If you’re going to kill me, hurry up and do it before I get any deeper into the inventory accounts. Making me wade through all of those first is unusually cruel... even for you.” Everything about his outward attitude was one of annoyance. In his psyche, the chess master was rubbing his hands with glee and quickly setting up the board.

Temari lounged against one of the tent poles, idly cleaning her fingernails with a kunai, pretending to ignore him. She was from the Hidden Sand village, once a deadly rival, now an ally. She’d taken the time to change out of her battle uniform and into something more like her standard shinobi wear, a short black kimono with a red sash. He’d always wondered whether she preferred the short skirts because she liked the freedom of movement they offered or if she just liked showing off her legs. He never got the courage to ask though, because Temari had the unnerving reputation of being the cruelest kunoichi in the world.

Physically she was attractive, but so were any other number of girls, until he talked to them. To Shikamaru, what made her... tolerable, was her personality. Every conversation was a new challenge with her. Her tongue and wit were honed to a razor’s edge. Temari lived every minute as if life were a sparring match and she was constantly trying to score points. Whenever she was around, she was always badgering, always haranguing him. He had to be constantly on his toes with her or else she’d leave him verbally sprawled in the dust.

“Was there something you wanted?” Shikamaru asked after the silence had gone on long enough. “Or did you just stop by to admire my genius?” On the mental shogi board, a pawn was slid forward. A safe opening gambit.

Her four, honey blonde ponytails rustled as she tossed her head, amused. There was the forest green flash of her eyes as she glanced at him and quickly looked away. “I stopped by because I heard the most amazing rumor... Shikamaru Nara was hard at work. I simply had to witness this miracle with my own eyes.” Her knight hopped out from behind the pawns, a strong offensive counter. “I was so sure you’d be at the party,” she continued teasingly. “Going seemed like a great strategy to get out of doing mountains of paperwork.”

And suddenly, Shikamaru didn’t feel like playing anymore. He quickly turned back to the desk. “Yeah... well... it’s a drag but... It’s my duty.” He left his king wide open... waiting for the end.

There was a rustle of silk. “It is your duty... But you can spare one night,” came her voice from right over his shoulder.

He hunched his shoulders over his work. “I don’t... Look, I just need to do this, okay?”

There was a long silence. Just as he was beginning to wonder if she had left. There was an explosive scrape as she pulled up a chair. “Fine. Where do I start?” She passed on the easy victory? Unheard of!

“We are going to tear our way through this bureaucratic nonsense, and then you are going to take me to the party,” she said adamantly. Temari glared at Shikamaru until he closed his mouth. “What? I’m not going to be able to find a date if I’m wasting all my time here with you, am I? What are you waiting for? Stop staring at me! Get working!”

******

It was too hot and too loud, just as he predicted. But in a way that was... okay. With so much assaulting his senses, it was difficult to focus on his own failings. He spotted the other members of his squad in the crowd. Ino dancing away with some broad shouldered Hidden Stone shinobi, and Choji stuffing his face from a tray piled high with delicacies.

Temari nudged him with her elbow. “Not bad huh?” she yelled in his ear to be heard over the music. Shikamaru just shrugged. There were a group of Hidden Sand village shinobi who kept looking over and whispering. “Are you having fun?” she yelled again in his ear.

Temari narrowed her eyes and jabbed him with her elbow hard enough to leave a bruise. He winced. That move was less than optimal. “You idiot!” she complained. “I’m going to go get a drink!”

Shikamaru rubbed his side and pointed. “Would you be so good as to get me one too?”

She stuck out her tongue at him before she turned. “No!”

There was a tap on his shoulder as he watched her sashay away. He found himself looking into the concerned eyes of a Sand shinobi. “Excuse me for asking but are you and Temari-san... um...on a date?”

Shikamaru shook his head. “No!” A moment of embarrassed confusion rippled through his brain. “Or at least I don’t think so.”

The Sand Shinobi stared at him with pursed lips. “Well be careful, you don’t want to end up like Gorou.”

Before Shikamaru could ask, Temari appeared right behind him and grabbed his elbow in an aching grip. “Ouch! What gives?” he yelped.

“I am going to dance!” she yelled over the thumping baseline. “And you're coming with me!” She dragged him to the middle of the dance floor, pushing other people out of the way. Once there she let go of his arm and began to shimmy.

He just stood there as she wildly gyrated around him in circles. He saw Ino flash past in the arms of some shinobi with a manly clefted chin. “Hey Shikamaru! Nice moves!” She called out giggling. As a matter of fact, they were drawing quite the audience, most of them laughing.

“Come on Shikamaru!” Temari yelled, thumping her hip into his. “Dance!” Shikamaru harrumphed, and tried to think himself invisible. “God,” she exclaimed as one song switched to another. “You really are bad at this aren’t you?”

Click, click, click. The shogi tiles fell in quick succession on his mental chess board. He held up one finger. “I’ll be right back,” Shikamaru said to Temari’s puzzled frown, pushing his way off the dance floor.

He returned as the music was changing, only to find a disappointed look on her face. “Congratulations, you weaseled out of it,” she muttered, taking his hand and walking off, “There’s no way anyone will dance to this old...”

Shikamaru’s feet were planted firmly. He tugged and she spun. He smiled at the astonished look on her face centimeters from his own as he glided into the first sensuous steps of the traditional Sand Village tango known as the burning sandstorm.

His hand pressed firmly in the small of her back, he guided her through the first three transitions until she recovered from her shock. With a self satisfied smirk, he dipped Temari low and executed a slow turn, giving her a good chance to see how they were the only ones on the dance floor. There was no sound other than the clack of their heels and the carnal pulsing of the music. Shikamaru ran his fingertips down her flank and pulled Temari upright again. Her eyes were crinkled with amusement, but her mouth was creased with determination.

Temari locked her eyes on his and roughly pushed him away. Then, with a slow undulating roll of her hips, she stalked back. Once again Shikamaru caught her hand and pulled her tight. With a challenging grin, Temari slid slightly to one side and molded herself to him running one hand down the side of his face.

From that point on, each of them tried to outdo the other with the most outrageously sensuous steps they could. He twisted her into a spinning whirl and she countered by seizing him around the back and giving him a long sliding caress down his chest. Shikamaru propped her leg up on his in a high leg wrap and gave her a short turn. Temari with a broad smile slowly lifted that leg off his thigh, placed it gently on his shoulder in a standing split, and leaned in.

The crescendo built and then stopped. Temari was bent back in a low lunge, with one leg coiled tightly around Shikamaru. His forehead was pressed tightly to hers. Both were breathing heavily. There was an explosion of applause and the spell was broken.

One moment they were still holding hands while the MC of the band was calling out for more applause. The next moment Shikamaru heard someone in the crowd yell, “Be careful! You’ll end up like Gorou!” There was a quick, almost painful tug on his arm, and Temari was pulling him outside.

*******

“Now where did you learn to dance like that?” Temari asked the cool night air, her face aglow. They were walking through the camp, in the general direction of her tent. “The truth now!” she insisted as Shikamaru opened his mouth.

She had seen right through his feint. Goodbye bishop. “My mom made me take dance lessons when I was ten. She said they’d come in handy someday. I was the only boy in a class of fifteen,” said Shikamaru with an embarrassed flush on his face. “How did you know I was going to make something up?”

Temari smirked. “I have two brothers. I know what boys look like when they lie.” She started to giggle. “I’m sorry, I just can’t get the image of ten year old you in a class full of girls out of my head. I bet that scowl of yours frightened them all away.”

Shikamaru made the aforementioned scowl. “Actually I was annoyingly popular. Everyone wanted to dance with the boy. It was such a drag.” Inside his head, he set up his rook for a counter attack. “It sounds like you were pretty popular too... Who is this Gorou guy?”

Temari stared off into the darkness, and for a moment he thought she wasn’t going to answer. Then she turned and flashed a too wide, brittle smile. “Gorou? Oh he was just some boy I dated. I thought he was the cutest guy in the world once.” They walked for a few steps, and she continued in a softer voice. “Do you know how hard it is when your father is the Kazekage, and your brother is a monster? Everyone walks on eggshells around you.” Temari studied the stars in the sky. “When Gorou started paying attention to me it was wonderful. When he asked me out on a date I was in heaven... and then when he kissed me goodnight...”

Temari gave a little pained laugh. “He bragged about it to all his friends. How he took the first kiss of the Kazekage’s daughter... I was nothing more than a prize to be won.”

Shikamaru found himself regretting this last foray. He never meant to... “So... What happened?” he asked quietly.

Temari sighed. “Oh... a few nights later I knocked him out, stripped him naked, and rolled him around in poison ivy. Then I hog tied him and left him hanging from the main gateway to the village.” She gave Shikamaru a sidelong glance. “He had to spend two weeks in the infirmary, wrapped in gauze and ointments. As you can guess... I haven’t had many dates since.” Temari stopped outside a large tent. “Anyway,” she said forced brightness. “I wanted to thank you. I had a very nice time.”

“Um... Me too,” said Shikamaru, extending his hand. “I really enjoyed myself.” Temari hesitated for a moment before reaching out and squeezing his fingers. Shikamaru’s next move was supposed to be a simple nod, before walking away.

She gripped his hand tightly, and her green eyes flashed. “You know,” she exhaled in the smallest whisper, “If you did want to kiss me... I... wouldn’t mind.”

Without thinking, he found himself leaning in and giving her a peck on the cheek. Temari glared at him, with one eyebrow raised. “What the hell was that?”

“Ha!” Temari laughed scornfully. “In your dreams!” She folded her arms. “You’ve never kissed a girl before... have you? You don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re...”

Shikamaru rocked forward and kissed her. Hard. His initial thought was “I’ll show her!” On his little mental shogi board, it was all planned out. First the kiss, and then the casual stroll off into the night... the epitome of cool.

Only it didn’t quite happen that way. Both of Temari’s arms slipped around his neck, and she kissed him back just as fiercely. Suddenly his hands were around her back pulling her towards him, the heat of her body blossoming through his shirt. Her tongue gently prodded his lips open and then danced against his. She tasted like fresh mint. One of her legs wrapped around his in a feverish repeat of the tango. As his fingers began to trace the taut muscles in her back, she lifted her head and shivered with pleasure. Shikamaru kissed her jawline and slowly moved down her neck.

Temari half fell, half pulled him in through the tent flap. They stumbled around in the darkness for a bit, pulling at each others clothes, jumping with each unexpected touch of bare skin. At some point the cot caught Shikamaru across the back of the knees, and he fell, pulling her down on top of him.

Temari paused, straddling him and cupped his face in her hand. Slowly, delicately she leaned down, kissed the bridge of his nose, the tip, and then lingered, just barely brushing his lips with hers, breathing heavily on his cheek.

Shikamaru’s mental chess board was in complete disarray. It was overturned, pieces strewn everywhere, the little chess player scrambling to put the shogi tiles back in some sort of defense. “So,” he muttered as Temari leaned over and nibbled his earlobe, “was that goodnight kiss acceptable, or am I going to be stripped naked and tied up?”

“That depends," Temari whispered breathlessly in his ear, “Do you want to be?”

Shikamaru’s lips curled in a smile. “Remind me to hand over my king later,” he muttered. Before her confused look could become a question, he kissed her once again.

A submission for the Beta-Reader Match-Making: A Fan Fiction Contest contest.

Author's Note: So the whole idea of this contest is to bang out a first draft of a short story and then it gets handed off to some other anonymous contest entrant who edits it... There are prizes for rough drafts and prizes for best editing job.

I entered for three reasons:

1) I have no willpower when it comes to prizes, especially the elusive premium membership. It's strange... I want one... I could easily buy one... But no! I must earn it! (I am such a weirdo sometimes.)

2)So far, I have been unable to write anything under 8k words. With a word limit of a mere 3K I figured this would be good practice (Hah! keeping the above story so short almost KILLED me. And I am NEVER prone to exaggeration or hyperbole! )

3) This little Shikamaru/Temari budding romance is going to make a much steamier appearance in later chapters in my fan novel... This was a good excuse to get a first draft of it finished.

I hope you enjoy.

-Cas

ADDENDUM:

For anyone who's interested... I finished the final draft of Check and Mate. Just to warn you... it is most definitely rated 'M'. Younger eyes and those of you with a prudish disposition... you have been warned.

Your pacing and descriptions were fantastic- each of your scenes were detailed enough for me to visualize the setting without becoming so wordy that it detracted from the story itself. The character interactions were, in my opinion, nearly perfect. I've always imagined that Shikamaru would fall for Temari because their interactions so closely resemble a game of shogi and she would intrigue him enough to garner his interest. Your rendition of this metaphor was excellent.

I did feel like the references to Temari's past relationship seemed a little rushed (probably from your word limit) and it got a little muddled between whether the main conflict of the story was Shikamaru's ghosts from the war or the battle between his analytical nature and his attraction to Temari, but I think that it was mainly because you did such a great job with both of those topics that I almost became torn between which I liked more. If you do end up using it as a base and expand it a bit more, it would make a great entry into the ShikaTema Shrine contest!

Yeah... word limits are murder on me. It's about all I can manage to keep a god story entry with in the dA, 64 kb limit per submission... 3000 words was damn near impossible for me. As you noticed there were so many little things I touched on... but just couldn't go into fully.

Heh heh heh... It's funny you should mention the contest...

I'm on page 18 of the full 'no word limit" draft. Hopefully it will shrink some with editing.

-Cas

PS- Thanks... It's great to get high quality constructive criticism like what you wrote above. I hope you don't mind the shameless plug, but I've currently got 27 chapters posted on the next generation Naruto fan novel posted here on dA. If you ever feel like giving it a try... (or for that matter any of the other short stories I've written) let me know what you think, I would really appreciate it.

YAY!!! You're still here!!! I hadn't seen nor heard anything from you for the longest time...

Thank you for your kind words. Personally, I'm... not so happy with this draft. It just feels so short... so rushed to me. There was so much here that I wanted to go into and describe and I was fighting the 3k word limit every inch of the way...

Which is why I'm now working on the complete and unabridged version of 'Check and Mate' This is going to be fun.

How are you? I miss reading 'Heaven' and 'Precious Things' Are there any new chapters in the pipeline?

Lol, yup I am still here xD ... Thing is, I cannot navigate this site beyond the basics to save my life, haha. Hence I've had a lot of help from the SasutenFans group but it's really quiet over there so nothing happening with me either. One day I'll figure out how this damn site works! xD

You are most welcome - give praise where it's due ^^

Hmmm ... I hear what you're saying (I struggle with that too, don't limit me damnit xD) but it didn't feel rushed to me. I liked that it was snapshot views and it really flowed very smoothly from section to section! BUT ... I can't wait for a full and unabridged version

Life hit me with a few curveballs lately (ugh) BUT I have updated a few chapters for both Heaven and Precious Things ^^ They're on fanfiction.net though and until someone comes back to help me (god,I suck xD)they won't be up on dA. I'd really love it if you'd read them - I adore your feedback - but I understand if you'd rather wait till they're up on dA ^^

I hear you - work has a nasty way of interfering with my life xD But it's not good when the bottleneck is with the editor. It became a huge problem for me with PT when my beta reader just disappeared on me ... I took it as a sign that I was not meant to have one and now I attempt to forge ahead on my own. When I want a second opinion I get a friend to read it over for me ^^ I dunno if I'd be any good for a writer of your calibre but if you ever want an opinion I'd be happy to read over it for you ^^

Luckily it appears as if bad luck has finished with me for now, haha. I sincerely hope a positive attitude keeps it that way! It was definitely a case of severe Murphy's Law xD

FF.net is my primary site. I started out there, made some pretty good friends and the (few) followers I've got are mostly on there so it's generally the best place to find my work and contact me. But I feel really bad about neglecting dA xD

Er ... it might be easier to tell you what I can do on here (the basics) but the biggest problem I had was the HTML code. Even with a tutorial from the founder of the group who got me active on dA I just couldn't get the damn things to work!

Is it possible to feel flattered and scoff humbly at the same time? Because I think I just did that... Thank you

Yeah, I still have to go through a little song and dance routine to post my stuff here in a way that I find acceptable. Here's what I do... I don't know if it will help you but...

1) download document from word processor as HTML file.

2) Open said document in firefox browser, Select all, copy, (NOTE: I've tried this with a bunch of other browsers, chrome, safari, explorer... Firefox is the only one that seems to keep the HTML encoding during a default paste, the others will just paste text. There might be some way to change the settings on the others but... The added advantage is that if you ever need to edit after posting, the text reads like a standard word processor... not a bunch of HTML code)

3) Open dA submit interface, select enter text, paste.

4) add witty comments, a title, blah blah blah, submit.

Note me if you want me to clarify... I'd be glad to help. (Anything to get you posting here again )

Thank you so much for the tutorial! Now that I see your song and dance (lol) I realize that perhaps my problem was that I wasn't downloading from the word processor as HTML. And I shall definitely try Firefox.

Hopefully I shall post something on here soon! I must admit that, though FF.net is my first 'home' as it were (and I think will always be simply because it's so much easier to upload a document xD) I've gotten such a great welcome on dA that I really want to keep it up to date. And then I haven't even mentioned the incredible feedback from readers on dA (have I mentioned how awesome your comments are? xD)